Dental implants have been known and used since at least the 1930's; see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,312,254 of Joel L. Rosenlicht. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,371 of Lars Jomeus which discusses the osseointegration method of integrating a dental implant into a patient's jaw. The disclosure of each of these patents is hereby incorporated by reference into this specification.
A wide variety of dental implant styles and systems are currently available. For example, dental implants having cutting means are also known in the art, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,197, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference into this specification. Another type of dental implant assembly is one that uses a hexagonal abutment implant system. This assembly is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,924, of which the disclosure is also herein incorporated by reference.
Applicant has described several dental implant devices in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,574,924, 5,733,124, and 6,068,479; the entire disclosure of each of these United States patents is hereby incorporated by reference into this specification. Furthermore, reference also may be had to applicant's International Patent No. WO 02/26157 A1, the entire disclosure of which is also hereby incorporated by reference into this specification.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved dental implant device.